


Find Your Bliss

by TLynn



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, xf revival, xf revival spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLynn/pseuds/TLynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why she left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find Your Bliss

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after IWTB and sometime before the revival.

He walked in to find her packing her things. He stood at the threshold of the door and watched as she gently placed a pile of blouses into the right corner of her suitcase, the silence deafening as she turned her back to lift even more clothes out of the small bureau under the window on her side of the bed. 

“Are we going to talk about this or are you just making a unilateral decision for both of us?”

“I’m just going to go stay in hotel by the hospital, Mulder,” she said with sigh, still facing away from him. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“When are you coming back then?” he asked.

Her shoulders slumped and her head bowed forward before she turned to him, her robe in her hands. She folded it over her arms once, then twice, then in half again before placing it gently in the bag. His eyes followed her hand as she reached for the stack of bras and panties, already folded, that sat on the bed to her right, and packed them away as well. 

“Scully--”

“I don’t know,” she said, finally looking at him. “I don’t know yet.”

“Scully, this is insane,” he said, still not stepping through and into the room. “I don’t understand how leaving is an option for you.”

“Don’t you?” she asked. “Are you really that oblivious?” She chuckled softly then, shaking her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“This is bullshit and you know it,” he said, anger rising at her ridicule of him.

“Mulder, I’m tired,” she said. “So very tired. It’s time for me to start moving again before the quicksand fully envelopes me.”

“Now who’s being dramatic?” he scoffed.

She shook her head and went to the closet, pulling clothes off the hangers. She threw the pile onto the bed, then kneeled down and pulled out another small bag, filling it with shoes. 

“I don’t understand,” he said again. “Talk to me, Scully. Tell me why you want to go to stay in a hotel by the hospital and not stay here.”

She dropped her last pair of heels in the bag and looked up to him, eyes glistening. She put a hand behind her to brace herself as she shifted her weight back and sat down on the hardwood floor, her other hand coming to her face to wipe the single tear that fell down her cheek.

“You’ll never be done,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Looking, digging, chasing. It’s who are are, it’s who you’ve always been. That tenacity is part of why I love you and have loved you for so long, but I can’t do it anymore, Mulder. I’m ready to truly stop and have a life without wondering what terrible thing is going to happen next to shatter any semblance of normalcy I’ve worked so hard to build.”

“Is that what this is about?” he asked. “Being ‘normal’? Normal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Scully. You should know that better than anybody. You’ve seen--”

“Yes, Mulder,” she interrupted. “I’ve seen. My fair share and then some. And yes, I want normalcy. I want to live my life free of knowledge of the next big government conspiracy or the next imminent extra terrestrial threat. I want to focus on my work at the hospital. I want to come home after that work and have dinner and read a book. I want to go to sleep at night and get up the next day and do it all over again. I don’t want to chase monsters in the dark, Mulder. I’ve told you that before. I mean it this time.”

“How could you live a life like that and ignore everything you’ve seen and done?”

“I don’t know, but I want the opportunity to try,” she said. “And I can’t have that opportunity when the person I love and next to whom I lay at night is still dedicated to a life I so desperately want to leave behind.”

“Scully...”

“I’m so tired, Mulder,” she said again, drawing her knees to her chest. “I’m so tired of this limbo we live in, have always lived in. You’re still so ready to chase the monsters and and I would never dream of asking you to stop, because I know that’s who you are. But all I want is to leave them behind, once and for all, and I don’t see how I can do that without leaving you behind as well.”

“So that’s is, is it?” he spat, his anger forming a palpable aura around him as his body stiffened and his hands curled into fists. He crossed into the room then, took quick steps until he loomed over her. “It’s going to be that easy to just turn your back on everything? On us?”

“It's not easy, Mulder,” she said softly. “Nothing with us has ever been easy. But this is the choice I’m making. I’m not going far. I’m staying at the hospital, you’ll know where to find me. But I can’t stay here anymore.”

She lifted her arm and reached up to him, silently asking for help up. After a beat, he met her hand with his own and she pulled herself up, pressing her body into his and tucking her head in the familiar spot under his chin. He sighed deeply and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

“Ignorance isn’t possible when you know as much as you do, Scully,” he said and rested his cheek on her head. “You won't find bliss.” 

“I don’t need it,” she countered, stepping back from his embrace. “I just need some peace. It may seem silly, but I need a chance for the life I had before--”

“Before you met me,” he said, nodding, his lips pursed tight.

“No,” she said, looking him square in the eyes. “Before my sister died. Before my cancer. Before you died. Before you came back. Before we lost our son. Before this quest consumed every single part of my life. I need to move on from it and I haven’t been able to do that. I come home from work feeling like I’m actually making a difference and that’s the feeling I want to expand. Not...not this endless, heartbreaking quest to find answers. I don’t care what the answers are anymore, Mulder, and I’m through looking. I just want to live my life like a normal person again before it all consumes me again.”

“If we quit now, they win,” he said, echoing his words from years before.

“I’m okay with that, Mulder,” she said, resigned. “I know you’re not. And that’s okay, too.”

Silence hung between them, she averting her eyes, his gaze unwavering. He studied her, taking note of the neat ponytail her hair was pulled back into, the curve of her exposed collar bone beneath the thin straps of her camisole top, her loose linen pants and bare feet. She was far cry from the Dana Scully he had first met all those years ago, as confident as ever but with much less to prove, older now, and wiser. She was more beautiful now as well, but their years together had taken their toll and he could see the grief on her face when she thought he wasn’t looking.

“Is there anything that will change your mind?”

She met his eyes now.

“Not this time.”

He nodded and closed the distance between them again. He leaned in and she could smell coffee on his breath as his lips gently and quickly pressed against hers. She snaked her arms up his back and hooked her hands over his shoulders and he wrapped his arms around her once more, pulling her close.

“I hope you find your bliss, Scully,” he said.

End

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write some angst during a fangirl chat on Facebook about Mulder and Scully hotness. Go figure. This is the first piece I've written in a few years, I'm a little rusty.


End file.
